Hey all

just made some investigators based off me and my friends/fam. Just wanting some feedback concerning if they're OP or not. I do have some experience making investigators/AOs and whatnot, so it shouldn't be TOO much of a broken-festival

Since one of the characters has a lot of support cards, I'll just post a link to the photobucket album (also never figured out how to directly post pics to here)

http://s1160.photobucket.com/albums/q500/richdogg13/

@ Elfir, ignoring the ridiculousness of the character theme, I'll go through and make comments on the abilities.

Twilight: Ability is taken from one of the strange eons defaults, which is pretty balanced. Her stuff seems fine, though honestly Spike seems a little weak as an ally (there's an ally that gives you 2 clues when they join you, in addition to stat boosts). I get that he's Clues that can't be lost, but the fact that he gets depleted and never restores makes him weak. Unfortunately, I don't know the characters so I can't give a better suggestion for spike.

Rarity: Ability is oddly specific, but really cool. I'd personally give her an additional ability, or at the very least give her bonus focus adjustment. Stuff seems fine, though maybe more fixed possessions (enchanted jewelry or something) would be good.

Pinky Pie: I love her ability. Good, versatile, and fun, without being overpowered. Her starting with the 'Luck' skill in addition to a random skill is an interesting choice. Ultimately, I think it's fine, but I wouldn't think so if it were most other skills (such as fight or lore)

Fluttershy: Her ability seems kind of weak to me. In addition, her stats make her unable to function as either a monster sweeper or as a gate closer. I have no idea what I could possibly do if I were to draw this character, other than sit around and try to farm items/ skills until I COULD functionally do something else. You could give her something to do with her increased freedom of movement (such as made her a good shopper, or gave her the power to assist her fellow players in some way), or you could have her gentleness do something beneficial for the game (such as maybe any monster that hurts her returns to the cup in shame, or else monsters actively chase the delicious looking prey). Again, her ability could be nice if she had another designated role... If she got some perk to shopping, gaining Allies, or closing Gates, she could be fixed.

Applejack: Looks fine, though not too interesting. Additional items you could consider: Axe instead of knife, food (though many have this already), Lantern, Whiskey (she's a farmer!), maybe a Blessing? Again, don't know characters. I like the use of Duke to represent her dog, though.

Rainbow Dash: Looks fun! The 'Rainbow' ability is very interesting, though difficult to know whether it is balanced or not since no default investigators can target the sky. I'd say it's fine. 'Dash' is a little iffier, as it means she never, ever moves her speed slider away from the right, and therefor effectively has 6 speed and 6 evade. However, evading monsters generally doesn't break the game, so I'd recommend some petty cost for it's use (perhaps 1 Stamina, or even 1 movement point). As for equipment for her, I'd throw down some weapons. Dynamite or holy water would be nice, to run in and take down that one big nuisance blocking in your buddy or in the sky. Then some utility weapon like an enchanted blade or something would be good.

Overall, pretty nifty and balanced characters.

@ Ricarditio13: You should reconsider possessions for most of these characters. Having 2 skills is very uncommon in the base game.

Robert: He has way too many abilities. Also, not only does lifeguard encompass the doctors 'Physician' ability, it looks like he can do it at any time during his turn, which already makes it better.

Isaac: His ability is cool, but not good. The ability to choose to draw from his own private Allies isn't actually that great, as his own Allies aren't any better than the default ones, and the fact that he has to return all of his allies TO THE BOX when he goes down is horrifically detrimental. I like what you were going for, but I would not be happy playing this character,

Chase: Ready to believe has slightly too many components (It's got half of 3 characters abilities). Not too terribly OP, though. May be fine.

Eugenio: Again, too many abilities. I like the 'regain one stamina on a success' component, but that needs to be it's own power. His 'use speed for evade' gets the same treatment as Rainbow dash, though I'd further push him needing to spend Stamina to do this (he can restore Stamina, afterall). I do like his ability to reroll 1's for speed.

Richard: His ability is pretty interesting, but overly wordy and probably OP. Clue tokens are supposed to be a finite commodity, so the ability to gain 1 every turn, then give them to your buddies, is kinda gross. Either way, he should not be able to gain more than 1 Clue token per turn, regardless of how well he rolls.

Alright, sounds good. So maybe... Nerf Robert a bit, take away bout half his abilities, sounds good. The thing about his lifeguard was that he could only do it to other players, while the physician can heal himself every turn. So if I limit its activation timing, should be pretty ok, I think.

Isaac, maybe not return his guys to the box? I was worried his allies would be OP, and the reason none of them are that good is that all the Raya allies give him +1 to his maxes, whereas normal allies wouldn't.

Chase, simplify a bit, sure thing.

And with Eugenio, I definitely like the spend a stamina to sprint by fools. Perfect!

Now with Richard, maybe make the lore check as hard as it can be and only to a max of 1 clue. Sounds good.

Thanks for commenting! It's been a big help.

@ricardito13: Glad to be of help! One thing I'd like to comment on is the noticeable lack of weapons in the group. I know they are based off of real people, but not having weapons can be devastating in Arkham. Also, I do feel it important to restate that very few cannon investigators have an additional skill. I don't think random skills are usually overpowered, but they do add a huge amount of variety (a character could end up with +2 fight, or someone with 3 sneak/ 3 lore could gain the ability to reroll 1 evade check and 1 spell check each turn.)

Robert: Oh yeah! Not being able to heal yourself with the lifeguard ability is actually a huge limiter, as it means it wont be useful on many turns without careful planning. With that in mind, I think he's decent as far as balance goes. I still have a bit of an issue with the way his 'lifeguard' is kind of two abilities mashed together, and his other ability is completely unrelated, but that's just aesthetics.

Isaac: Oh, I see now. If that's what you want, it should be reworded so that it states he gets +1 Sanity and Stamina for each Ally, rather than him getting +1 for having any Allies (as its worded now it doesn't seem like it stacks). That may indeed be too powerful, as he could end up as a 10 Sanity/ 10 Stamina monstrosity if you play your character right and get lucky. Kind of a weird leveling game, where you start weak and grow huge enough to punch out an Ancient One single-handedly. I could imagine it being fun to play now, but it is certainly a nightmare to balance. Either way, I'd make him discard his Allies rather than return them to the box, just so that he CAN recover if he gets screwed.

Chase: On second reading, he's probably fine. his bonus to spellcasting makes him a viable caster despite mediocre Lore, which is fun. No Sanity loss from Tomes is nice, but not going to wreck the game. That leaves the reduced Sanity loss from spellcasting as his major boon, but the character who has that ability has an extra benefit as well.

Richard: As long as he's not guaranteed a clue token every turn, and so long as he can't get more than one, it should be okay.

When we made the Stay-Puft Mrashmallow Man into a GOO, we decided to whip these up too, and they do make for a pretty fun game!

i1226.photobucket.com/albums/ee417/snurtman/Venkman.jpg

i1226.photobucket.com/albums/ee417/snurtman/Ray.jpg

i1226.photobucket.com/albums/ee417/snurtman/Egon.jpg

i1226.photobucket.com/albums/ee417/snurtman/Winston.jpg

Let's try that again…

<a href=" http://s1226.photobucket.com/albums/ee417/snurtman/?action=view&current=Venkman.jpg" target="_blank"><img src=" http://i1226.photobucket.com/albums/ee417/snurtman/Venkman.jpg" border="0" alt="Photobucket"></a>

<a href=" http://s1226.photobucket.com/albums/ee417/snurtman/?action=view&current=Ray.jpg" target="_blank"><img src=" http://i1226.photobucket.com/albums/ee417/snurtman/Ray.jpg" border="0" alt="Photobucket"></a>

<a href=" http://s1226.photobucket.com/albums/ee417/snurtman/?action=view&current=Egon.jpg" target="_blank"><img src=" http://i1226.photobucket.com/albums/ee417/snurtman/Egon.jpg" border="0" alt="Photobucket"></a>

<a href=" http://s1226.photobucket.com/albums/ee417/snurtman/?action=view&current=Winston.jpg" target="_blank"><img src=" http://i1226.photobucket.com/albums/ee417/snurtman/Winston.jpg" border="0" alt="Photobucket"></a>

Flarkin' A! Third time's a charm…

Last try…

http://s1226.photobucket.com/albums/ee417/snurtman/?action=view&current=Venkman.jpg

http://s1226.photobucket.com/albums/ee417/snurtman/?action=view&current=Ray.jpg

http://s1226.photobucket.com/albums/ee417/snurtman/?action=view&current=Egon.jpg

http://s1226.photobucket.com/albums/ee417/snurtman/?action=view&current=Winston.jpg

Ah screw it. I can't remeber how to post pics on the forum. this might work…

Ha! It worked!

I ain't 'fraid of no ghost!

Capnjones said:

Better: I ain't 'fraid of no post!

Out of curiosity, would it be unheard of for an investigator to have it's own specific token?

IE: The character idea I had would be for a guy to have X number of inspiration tokens, where X = number of investigators. During Upkeep, if there are less inspiration tokens in play than X the character can regain 1 discarded inspiration token. Then have two abilities.

1: Character can give one inspiration token to another investigator at the same location. Inspiration tokens can be used and discarded by other investigators anytime a clue token would be required. An investigator can only have 1 inspiration token at a time.

2: Character can use inspiration tokens himself to replace a clue token, but when doing so, they are removed from play (returned to the box.)

Characters can have their own tokens, just like Ancient Ones can. I've written a couple of Investigators which use special tokens to simulate their abilities.

Welp, looks like an ability that would work perfectly fine for the "homage" I was doing already exists. I just renamed the second ability to more fit the character, and his skill scores are slightly altered.

Male Patrice? Seriously?

The idea was to originally do something with a finite pool of inspiration tokens that could be traded to other investigators if they were at the same location, and the inspiration tokens could be used as clue tokens. Other investigators could only have one token at a time, and if the number of inspiration tokens in play were less than the initial finite pool at any time, Mark could regain one during his upkeep.

Mark could also use the inspiration tokens himself but if this was done, the tokens were returned to the box and couldn't be replaced.

Then I saw Patrice's ability in strange Eons and decided to just do that, as it sort of fits the concept as well, and I was worried the other ability would have been unbalanced.

In your original design, if I understand it correctly, Mark has to visit other investigators to give them Inspiration tokens which act as surrogate clues. Alternatively Mark can spend them himself in which case they are returned to the box. This sounds far more balanced than Patrice, who is generally regarded as borderline broken.

Some thoughts to consider… The number of Inspiration tokens available needs to be capped - maybe a maximum equal to the gate limit - this gives a balance - with more players Mark won't get as many tokens, with fewer players Mark will be able to get more tokens, but he'll have less opportunity to give them to his colleagues.

Also, going about your daily business isn't very inspiring. ("Day 53 and Mark has gone to the toilet and had two Weetabix for breakfast") Maybe Mark start with two Inspiration tokens and gain one every time he does something cool like closing a gate or defeating a monster in combat. This encourages the player to try and be a hero, which fits in with Mark's general demeanour.

I just don't see the point of creating custom investigators if they're just direct copies of original.

Stormson99 said:

The general consensum of the forum is that "Patrice" and "unbalanced" mean the same…

It's really unbalanced, especially with such a great focus

Julia said:

Gotta agree with that. The Veteran investigator has interesting stats (low speed is always an interesting downside, it's one of the few things in the game that forces you to think several turns ahead) but if you wanted to do a balanced investigator, don't use the Violinist's ability! That ability is waaaay broken.

Your 'inspiration token' thing was interesting, why scrap it? The Veteran starts with three Inspiration tokens; he can give them to any other investigator in the same space; but when an investigator spends one as a Clue token, it returns instantly to the Veteran. If the Veteran himself spends them, they're returned to the box - sounds ok to me.

He is a little overpowered, but then again I made him for fun and he is Batman after all. You can find the full size versions at my blog here . Also if you look for the Arkham Horror label on the side you can see others that I have made in the past.

I would change the first ability so that it only lets him gain a clue token from somewhere else on the board if he ends his movement at a location with no clue tokens. Then it would only be slightly overpowered and board depleting. However, if you wanted to give him a more thematic clue token generating ability, why not have him gain a clue token whenever he defeats a Cultist or Maniac? Beating up Thugs is REALLY where he gets all of his leads.

As for his second ability… why not just give him the 'bravery' skill? Speaking of, I would drop duke (which makes no sense) and give him one random skill at least. Batman is supposed to be made of skills! Then i would change his second ability to 'Richest man in Gotham', and have it Allow him to spend 1 Focus for $1 during upkeep, or something.

His stats are obviously unbalanced, but really, the Batman should have all 5s and 6s and have 3 Focus in order to be accurate to the comics.

As stated he's over powered on purpose. He's not really designed to be played, more to be giggled with. Also, he's the World's Greatest Detective, he doesn't only get clues from beating people up. In fact in Long Halloween and Hush (two of the true "detective" stories he's had lately) he barely fights anyone.

Oh and it's only Duke until I bother to make Ace.

Hello all! New here. Just messing around with the Strange Eons program and I haven't seen any Titus Crow related investigators, so here are a couple. Both are most likely over-powered, so what does he need to tone the two down?

I hear people around here like custom stuff. Well, I've got tons of it. So much, in fact, that I can't post it all at once.

But I'm gonna try to get as much of it down as I can. I love critique and praise, and do attempt to make interesting and reasonably fair investigators as often as I can. Currently, I have the following to my name:

-48 Investigators, one of which is 7 investigator sheets in one.

-8 Ancient Ones, with 3 Sinister Plots per Ancient One

-4 Guardians, 1 Herald, 1 Scenario, and 1 Institution (which is really more like the new set of rules)

-Various Items, Monsters, and extra tidbits to support the other custom stuff.

Since I don't have everything in a downloadable format now, I'll leave a few things now and add more in future posts. As a fair warning, not all of these investigators look like they belong in the city of Arkham, and I'm sorry if it bothers any of you.

First, I'll start with 5 investigators based on the Odin Sphere main cast.

A download link for the original Strange Eons files are listed below. Included are all 5 investigators, 2 items, and 1 special.

http://www.mediafire.com/download.php?f6kdapv9ntt2jk4

(All pictures have been shrunk mildly, if there's a better way to get them on this forum I'd love to know)